Petition of Patience Gimbee to the Massachusetts General Court
To the Honorable Council and the House of Representatives of the State of the Massachusetts Bay in America in General Court Assembled
The petition of Patience Gimbee, an Indian Native of Grafton, humbly sheweth that a sister of your petitioner departed this life about four years ago and did by her last will and testament1 give and bequeath to me a legacy of about twenty-four pounds money, which money abovesaid, the then trustees did let out an interest for my benefit. Since that time, your humble petitioner's family has been visited with a great deal of sickness. Three children2--I have buried all of them--died with a consumption, and each of them a considerable time under the doctor's hand, by which means (together with other sickness in my family). I am greatly in debt and put to great difficulty to support my family. Therefore, your humble petitioner humbly prayeth that Your Honors would take this petition under your consideration, and if it should seem good to Your Honors to give orders to the present Trustees to call on and deliver to me, your humble petitioner, the abovesaid legacy to enable me to pay my just debts, and to support my family for the future or such a part of it as Your Honor in your wisdom shall think proper.
And as in duty bound shall ever pray,
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Certification: |
We, the Trustees of the Indian affairs of Grafton, being creditably informed by the neighbors of the abovesaid petitioner that she is person of temperance and industry and her necessity to be very great, do recommend the abovesaid petition in favour of said petitioner / Willis Hall, Stephen Maynard, Edward Rawson, Trustees of the Grafton Indians |
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Cataloguing: |
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- 1. Hannah Lawrence made her last will and testament on August 24, 1772 in Grafton, Massachusetts. For "kind and tender care" in her last sickness, Hannah left to her sister Esther Lawrence Freeborn all her right in one hundred acres of land in Grafton, together with all her wearing apparel, household furniture, and interest of money bonds. Worcester Probate Records, Vol. 11-12 (1769-1774), Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991, Ancestry. 185-186.
- 2. These children remain unidentified.